Wedding Time!

Well, I really did plan to post more often than this. I guess I will have to work harder at getting back into the habit. One change I am making is actually naming the kids in posts now, following Melanie's lead. My posts are clearly going to be a bit disjointed. I have had about a dozen breaks while writing this for various reasons, but hey, at least I am getting it posted!

This past week has been a week of, well, parties. The first party was a beautiful wedding that we simply could not miss. Of course, with Filipino weddings this pretty much means a series of parties for several days in a row. The next "party" was Natalie's birthday, but I'll save that for another post.

We traveled to Michigan for our cousin's wedding. Yes, really Melanie's cousin but we are all so close to their family that I say "our cousin." I have literally known R since she was a little girl and it is always a wonderful time when we visit her family. I was particularly thrilled to see how quickly our children warmed up to seeing relatives that they don't see often.

The trip out was a nightmare that I will rant about another time. Once we got there we had a wonderful time. Eric was the ring-bearer for the wedding. He fell asleep during the rehearsal, but, even though he didn't practice his part, he walked up the aisle for the wedding. Here is is crashed out, gives you a hint of how tired all of us were, but that rant is being saved for another time ;).

One of the nicest things about this trip was the fact that Uncle N chartered a bus to take people back and forth from the hotel to the church, rehearsal dinner, etc. This made things MUCH easier on me (as I do the driving), particularly on Friday for the rehearsal because I still didn't have much sleep. The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun, particularly for the kids. Eric woke up and, eventually, was in a good mood to play with the other kids. Here he is with Natalie playing in my coat.

We love the fact that our children get along so well with their cousins, Natalie stayed in Houston for two weeks this summer playing with her cousins and Alex stayed in Houston for the several days before the MLS All-Star game. This instantly makes weddings like this more comfortable for the kids, and when they are more comfortable they warm up to other relatives that much more quickly.

Eric made it up the aisle like a champ. Helped, no doubt, by the very precocious and outgoing flower girl that LOVED the attention!
His flower didn't make it through the wedding, in addition to being rather abused, the magnet that held it on his coat fell off while he was playing with the flower and must have rolled away. He crashed at the end of the wedding and slept the whole bus trip back to the hotel. He woke up a little bit when I tried to set him down in bed at the hotel before the reception, and eventually "came around" to join in the late night festivities. He likes bus and train rides and was VERY upset that he wasn't going to get back on the bus.

Eventually he warmed up and went on the dance floor. Everyone had a wonderful time, and the next few days we were able to relax with family and simply enjoy the wonderful weather.

Back in the Blogger Again

Okay, I am finally back trying to blog a bit more. I guess I have just been lazy the past few months. I guess I always figure that my lovely wife's blog covers everything but I need to admit that this isn't always the case.

Case and point, this past Wednesday night I took the big boys to Houston for the MLS All-Star vs Manchester United game. Yes, I said Houston. DS#2 was already there staying with his cousin for a few days, so I picked DS#1 up early from his PE Camp Counselor bit at school and drove to Houston. It rained most of the trip, but we got there in time.

Then we had to deal with the horrible Houston traffic to get to Reliant Stadium for the game. The traffic was particularly awful, and getting into the parking lot was terrible too. Leaving the game was just as painful, the trip home took over 4 hours.

Basically, I totaled well over 8 hours of driving for the whole thing, we got back to SA at 2:00 AM the next morning. It was worth it.

The boys and I had a blast, it was fun to see all of the various star players on the field, as well as the noise and cheering of actually being able to watch at the stadium. With over 70,000 fans in attendance, this was the largest number for any MLS game, ever. With the excitement of the World Cup, maybe soccer really is starting to become more well-understood by, and interesting to, American fans.

I didn't try to take any pictures of the game, as you can see we were pretty far up and I only had the small camera. We had a great time. Of course, Man U is a "team" not a collection of all-stars from different teams that don't regularly play together. The 5-2 game actually wasn't even that close. We loved seeing the game, and DS#2 was thrilled to see some of his favorite players on the field.

Keeping Up

Sometimes my dear wife and I feel like we are struggling just to keep up with all of the various activities the kids are involved in. Add in a few parties and special events and sometimes we really feel like we are just leaves being tossed about in the wind. While each individual child doesn't have that many activities, when you add them all together it fills the calendar pretty quickly.

Tomorrow DS#2 has soccer practice, DD has a party to go to, and DS#1 wants to meet a few of his friends for dinner. DS#1 has to have an early night due to getting up early in the morning for soccer.

That brings us to Saturday, DS#1 needs to be at the school by 7:15 AM and should be done with his JV soccer games by about Noon or a little after. This gives us a little bit of time to eat and change for the 2:30 PM soccer games in the afternoon. Both DS#1 and DS#2 have games at 2:30, fortunately, they both have home games so we don't have to split up for the games. Then we get to come home, get cleaned up and head to church and possibly a family dinner out. That way DS#1 and I can get a good rest before Sunday morning's trip to Corpus Christi (2 1/2 hour drive) for another soccer game.

Looks like it will be a busy weekend-let's hope I can keep up.

Back in the Blogosphere

Okay, I admit it, I have been lazy about blogging for a while now. The solid 1-month gap between posts is a good sign. Usually I just use the excuse that my lovely wife has posted everything in her blog so that I don't need to. She does do her best, but she can't cover everything so it is time for me to step back in and start posting more often.

I am going to start with a series of pictures I saved just for the blog several weeks ago. DS#1 has been enjoying High School Soccer but has to deal with the fact that he is, well, a freshman. This means he is pretty far down the totem pole in terms of play time, even for the JV team. Some schools have enough boys for 2 JV squads and on days they play those games, he gets to play a full game. These pictures are from one of those games. DS#1 doesn't complain about play time because he gets more time than a number of other freshman on the team and because he recognizes that it is part of being one of the youngest players on the squad.

I didn't get as many good pictures as I had hoped but I did get a few. I picked this series because it shows DS#1 making a fantastic play on the ball and also shows that they are playing on a football field in a large stadium. DS#1 had a great game against the New Braunfels HS team and his play was not only recognized by his coaches but his teammates as well. He has had several other good games lately and his play has been steadily improving and we are very proud of him and how hard he has been working.

This series of pictures shows him stopping an attack and sending a pass up the field right between two attackers. The pictures look a bit chaotic but keep in mind these three frames were taken in a period of about 1 second.

"Man Cave"

Okay, I was joking around a little bit yesterday when I called our bedroom my "Man Cave." I was watching one of the playoff games (Chargers vs Jets, about the only close game of the weekend) and one of the boys wanted to play on the PS3 downstairs (DS#2, he wanted to play FIFA 2010). I said okay, went upstairs and pulled out the big red leather chair so that it faced the TV and watched the game there with my laptop in my lap.

I even brought a drink upstairs as well as some food ;). This is really the time of year I get to watch football and my dear wife took care of a lot of things yesterday and on Saturday enabling me to watch. Club soccer practices start up again this week for the big boys (DD doesn't start until February) and it looks like both will be playing in a tournament the weekend of the Superbowl. The tournament should be over on time for the Superbowl but I don't think I'll be able to offer chili this year. We'll see.

You can see the background of the room, which is a mess, but what you can't see is that my neighbor helped me glue and clamp the broken headboard to the bed yesterday afternoon. The bed broke over 2 weeks ago now when DS#1 and I tried to push it out. You can see more about that on my dear wife's blog here. Basically, it was never set up correctly and we had only moved it a little bit in the past so we didn't know.

The glue has set and I will drill out the holes and re-set the pins and set the bed up again later today. This will be the best day to take care of it because DS#1 will be here to help.

I do need to post more often, and I will try to in the future. DS#3 has been tons of fun (and work) lately and I need to keep the grandparents apprised of the latest developments.

Football Saturday

Yesterday was a "Football" day. DS#1 had a soccer game (football to some) in the morning which actually made things a little bit difficult due to my dear wife being on "back-up call" but we worked it all out. Why did we have to "work it out?" Well, DS#2 received some vouchers for general seating at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, a football game played by the top high-school seniors in the nation here in San Antonio at the Alamo Dome. DS#2 really wanted to go and I knew he'd enjoy it so we worked it out so that I could take him after watching a bit of DS#1's soccer game. Interestingly, DD decided she wanted to come along too.

We had horrible traffic and parking problems and got there a little bit late, but we did get to see the last part of the 1st quarter and didn't leave until there were about 6 minutes left in the 4th so the kids got to see a lot of the game. We were very fortunate because when we got there someone offered us tickets with specific seats (I wasn't clear on what our vouchers were for then) and we accepted them. We ended up in the 8th row on the 40 yard line and got a GREAT view of all of the action. DS#2 LOVED it!

Unfortunately, I forgot to get one of the cameras from my dear wife and had to use my cell phone to take a few pictures. These aren't very good, but you can see how close we were to the field and even how DD had a lot of fun too. DD doesn't really understand football but she enjoyed watching with us, and enjoyed the crowd. I enjoyed seeing the game and I was VERY impressed by how well some of these young men played. One of the quarterbacks clearly showed he has an arm as strong as some pro quarterbacks.

Without major soccer games going on right now, I actually get a chance to watch some NFL football on TV so I closed my "Football Saturday" with more football in the evening while playing internet (facebook) games. DS#1 had some of his high school friends over to finish a project and study, and they all surprised us by actually working on (and finishing) their project and doing some studying. Now I am going to relax a bit more while watching some football this afternoon (Go Packers!)

First Day of Pre-School

Yesterday, DS#3 started day care/pre-school at a location we have used in the past for DD and DS#2. In the morning he was THRILLED to be going to "school" (yes, that is what we are calling it). I think part of his dancing and excitement was the idea of being like his big sister and older brothers. It was fun to see his excitement, and gave me high hopes that he would do well during the day. He wasn't quite as thrilled when he realized that I was leaving him there. He has had plenty of experience being left in the child care area at LifeTime Fitness (the gym I go to) and is adjusted to it, but this was a bit new for him.

When I came to pick him up, he looked like this. He was sitting at the table with everyone else with a snack in front of him crying. The teachers told me that he did great during "free play" but when they had organized snack time, playtime, etc. he did not want to stop playing to come to the table and sit down. Apparently he was screaming so loudly at one point that they moved his chair away from the table so the other kids could focus on what they were doing.

Part of the reason we have him there is to get used to playing with other children and getting used to having more structure in his day. He can sit at a table and color, play, etc., for quite a while for me, but I don't force him to sit down at a particular time of day for special activities. His mood, and our other activities, dictate when he sits and colors, or when we read together, not a special schedule. I am sure he'll adjust to a schedule ... eventually.

He calmed down a bit when I got there, but was still out of sorts for a little while. I tried to get another picture of him with his Thomas Backpack because I didn't get any other pictures in the morning (sorry honey!). Tomorrow he has his second day of "school" (he will only go on Tuesdays and Thursdays) so we'll have to see how that goes. Yesterday, I actually got a lot of work done, including a good amount of writing. Tomorrow I have a rather long list so we'll have to see how much I can manage to get done.